On the back of Amazon’s success with videogame adaptationFallout, carving an original narrative inBethesda’sfamiliar world, it’s becoming clear that other publishers are keen to action transmedia projects following this formula.Ubisoft’sfilm & TV division is currently brainstorming a new role within franchise development tailored to mapping out expansions.
Ubisoft’s flagship IP,Assassin’s Creed, has branched out already to produce comic books and a 2017 movie adaptation starring Michael Fassbender (the stoic David from the Alien franchise) we’d all rather forget. The French publisher also has original brandsFar CryandWatch Dogsto grow beyond Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix and the now in-development Watch Dogs animation for “tweens”.
If Ubisoft Wants To Save Skull And Bones, It Needs To Go On Game Pass
Hey, it worked for Starfield.
Ubisoft’s “World Architects” Will Help Design Transmedia Worlds
Speaking to Edge Magazine, Hélène Juguet, managing director of Ubisoft Film & TV Paris, was discussing the winning recipe for cooking up good videogame adaptations alongside Xalavier Nelson Jr, Strange Scaffold studio head and game director of El Paso, Elsewhere.
Discussing Cyberpunk: Edgerunner’s influence over theCyberpunk 2077base game, Nelson Jr’s praise forCD Projekt Red’sIP interrelation touched on Ubisoft’s transmedia ambitions, even though Juguet “doesn’t like the word ‘transmedia’ - I want to find something else”.
Juguet shared “the dream is to make something that’s so cool and so good that they want to use it inside the game,” referring to Phantom Liberty’s use of Edgerunners’ ‘Cyberpsychosis’. Instead of treating franchises like properties to rent, Juguet and Ubisoft have “started talking about ‘world architects’, kind of like the showrunners of our industry,” to craft IPs as universes to delve into and expand.
Looking into the future of videogame adaptations within transmedia projects, Juguet predicted “I think it will only go further in that direction, where you don’t write just a novel or a videogame, but you architect a world with rules that can be expressed in many different ways.” Expressing that was her “conviction”, Juguet’s idea is exciting to ponder, and one day, the Assassin’s Creed brand could flaunt that kind of interconnectivity.
Additionally, when it comes to successful videogame adaptations, Fallout flaunts the perfect blueprint by building an original story upon the aesthetic fans already love. In a similar fashion, “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners took that universe, from both its lineage in tabletop and then the videogame, and used it to tell an original story that really connected with people,” Nelson Jr expressed.
Edgerunners has certainly inspired the transmedia brainstorming in other companies, and if the discussed “architects” can establish cohesive worlds anything like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, gamers are in for a treat.
